Record Depression & Anxiety: Covid and Our Mental Health

On April 16, 1986 reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic suffered a catastrophic explosion that exposed the core and sent clouds of radioactive material over the surrounding area as a fire burned uncontrollably. Within two days of the disaster, high levels of radiation were picked up as far as Sweden, while plants and grasslands in Britain also measured contamination. Today, 35 years later, 57,915 square miles of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are still considered contaminated and the 1,544-square mile exclusion zone, more than twice the size of London, is uninhabited.

There is consensus that thirty-one men died from immediate blast trauma and acute radiation syndrome after the disaster and, in the decades since the catastrophe, sixty more died from radiation-induced cancer. But there is a lot of debate as to how many more deaths from long-term health effects can be attributed to the disaster. In 2005, the UN estimated that a further 4,000 might eventually die as a result of radiation exposure. The Ukrainian government calculates things very differently. As of January 2018, 1.8 million people in Ukraine, including 377,589 children, have the status of victims of the disaster.

The radiation from the Chernobyl disaster and its impact can be measured; they are visible and perceptible. For the past fifteen months, we have been experiencing a disaster around the globe. Its physical impact can be measured in the data of casualties, diagnoses, symptoms, and recoveries. But what about the long-term spread of mental health challenges after over a year of locking down, quarantining, distancing, masking, and more? What about those whose mental well-being was upended by a sudden loss of a loved one or an economic crisis? How many victims of this disaster are being projected, adults and children who may never have even been diagnosed with the virus, but who have nevertheless suffered terribly and will suffer from its lasting impact and effect?

A recent national poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association shows four in ten Americans reporting that they are more anxious than last year. 43% of adults said the pandemic has had a serious impact on their mental health, and it is showing in behavior. Among adults, 17% said they were drinking more alcohol or taking more drugs than normal, up from 14% a year ago. More than half of adults (53%) with children said they are concerned about the mental state of their children and almost half (48%) said the pandemic has caused mental health problems for one or more of their children, including minor problems for 29% and major problems for 19%. Nearly half (49%) of parents say their child received help from a mental health professional since the start of the pandemic.

While radiation from Chernobyl can be identified and avoided, the residual impact of this pandemic on our mental health and well-being is invisible, often neglected, and arguably not considered enough in policy setting.

If someone were suffering with radiation-induced cancer due to a catastrophe, or any other physical illness for that matter, not associated with any particular event, we would never blame them, shame them, ignore them, or neglect them. This is an obvious point but one that bears repeating: we must treat those struggling with mental illness the same way. It is no less an illness, no more the fault of the person suffering from it, and no less deserving of our support and love. The more mental illness is proliferating, the more we must become educated, sensitized, and prepared to be supportive and include it in our policymaking and programming.

Several years ago, a father lamented to me about his child who was struggling to find his way Jewishly and generally. He told me when the child was young, he had some learning and mental health challenges. That child had a classmate with some physical limitations. The father emotionally described that on the one had it was beautiful how the children ran to help, assist, support and include the child with physical challenges, but on the other it was disturbing how his son felt excluded, neglected, and even bullied. “If only my child’s challenges were on the outside inside of the inside, maybe he would have been treated differently and turned out differently,” he said.

Our sacred Torah and Halacha see mental health illness not only as real, but as no different than physical illness. Rav Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 12:18:8) discusses someone with mental illness who recovers and wants to recite Birchas HaGomel. He quotes one of the “rabbonim of Eretz Yisroel” who says:

ומסתברא לי שגם מי שחלה בחולי נפש אף שאין המחלה יכולה לגרום לסכנת חיים מ”מ הנרפא חייב לברך, וגם זה בגדר חולה ונתרפא… בדין שהנרפא חייב לברך ברכת הגומל, ברם יתכן לפטור אותו מטעם שאין רפואתו ברורה שעלולה לחזור אליו מחלתו הקודמת ונמצא דעדיין לא נתרפא, אבל כל שברור לנו שהמחלה לא תחזור מן הדין שיברך.

It seems to me that also mentally ill, even when it doesn’t lead to life-threatening situations they are nonetheless obligated to bless because it is also in the category of the sick person who is healed… and the law is that anyone who is healed need to bless Birchas HaGomel, yet perhaps we should exempt him from blessing Gomel because his healing isn’t clear considering that he might have a relapse and it shows he wasn’t actually healed! But anyone who is clearly healed should bless.

Rav Asher Weiss Shlit”a was asked about someone suffering with OCD and he writes:

A student who is devout and God-fearing suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and for the most part is unable to say a Beracha or Shema according to halacha, and sometimes spends a lot of time trying to say God’s name properly to no avail, and experiences a lot of anguish. According to the doctors who are experts in this condition the treatment is to never go back in prayer, and if he does not feel he said the prayer properly, he should not make another try. In this way, the doctors hope to save him from his distress.

It is the halacha that the first obligation a person has is to do whatever is required to find healing from this illness and for this it is even permitted for him to bypass and not do mitzvos in the Torah.

There are people all around us struggling with anxiety, depression, OCD, bipolar disorder, and other mental health challenges. The patient with cancer cannot simply will his or her cancer away, the individual with Alzheimer’s cannot simply decide to stop forgetting, and the person with depression or anxiety cannot just decide to not feel worried, or worthless, or exhausted. They deserve no less attention, concern, and resources than those with physical ailments. If you are struggling or treating mental health challenges, know it is not your fault, don’t be ashamed or feel guilty, let us know what we can do to be more supportive.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a perfect time to educate ourselves. As we resolve to be more sensitive, please consider the following:

Don’t use the term “depressed” or “anxiety” unless it is clinically appropriate. Find another way to say you are sad or disappointed or that you are worried or concerned. Saying you are depressed or have anxiety over a relatively minor issue minimizes the suffering of someone truly struggling.

When someone you know is acting differently or unusual, don’t judge them or jump to assumptions about them. Pirkei Avos (2:4) quotes Hillel who said: “Do not judge another until you have stood in his place.” Since it is impossible to stand in another person’s place, to be them, to have their baggage or to live their struggles, we can never judge another. Instead, we should be kind, sensitive, supportive and understanding of everyone around us.

Never assume you know everything going on in someone’s life or what motivates his or her behavior. Ian Maclaren, the 19th-century Scottish author once said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” Cut others slack; give people the benefit of the doubt.

When you know a friend or family member has depression, bi-polar, anxiety disorder, etc., be as supportive as you would be with someone suffering with a physical illness or disability. Offer help and assistance, check in, and let them know you are just thinking of them. Unlike acute illnesses, most of the time, depression, for example, is chronic. Once diagnosed, it can be controlled, lessened, or perhaps, even go into “remission.” But it is never cured. Support will be needed in some form always.

When reaching out to someone with mental health challenges, never judge, criticize or make comparisons. Don’t offer advice or minimize the person’s struggles. Simply listen, be present, and be a friend.

While the pandemic has accelerated and exploded mental health challenges, they were on the rise long before we ever started using words like shutdown or quarantine. In 2019, there was a record number of suicides, overdoses and record rates of depression and anxiety. There are many factors contributing to this rise including addiction to social media, chemical factors and more.

Use this month to learn, listen, and understand. Reach out when appropriate. And may it be God’s will that just like the number of people physically impacted by Covid continues to decline, may the same be true of those suffering from less visible effects.

Who is Your Arch Nemesis?

A few years ago, my young daughter was filling out a fun journal she had received as a gift. After answering standard questions like “who is your best friend,” “what is your favorite food,” “what color do you like the most,” she came across the question, “who is your arch nemesis.” A bizarre question for a children’s journal. Understandably, she had no idea what was being asked, so she approached my wife, asking her what arch nemesis means.

“Of course you don’t have one,” my wife explained, “but arch nemesis means an enemy. Who do you not get along with?”

My daughter ran off to continue to fill out the journal. Later, my wife saw the journal lying around and opened it up to see how my daughter had answered. She was astounded at what she saw. In the blank for “who is your arch nemesis,” my six-year-old had written “the yetzer hara.”

While many of us are much older and more experienced, we fail to acknowledge or identify our arch nemesis – the yetzer hara. Some of us have the yetzer hara to eat unhealthy food or excessive portions; others struggle with greed or jealousy. Some have the yetzer hara to gossip and others to talk during davening. Some have the yetzer hara to bend the truth and others to lose their patience.

These and other common yetzer haras have been well identified and much ink has been spilled providing encouragement and strategies to overcome them. But there is a yetzer hara whose temptation and seduction is only growing in our generation that not only have we failed to conquer, but in many cases we have failed to even name.

While technology was supposed to give us more flexibility and free time, most people in today’s technological era feel they simply have no time. How many of us say we want to exercise, to read, to learn, to enjoy family activities, and to pursue a myriad of other goals, but claim that we have no time?

If you feel that way, you are not alone. A Gallup poll found that 61 percent of working Americans said they did not have enough time to do the things they wanted to do. Ask someone how he or she is doing and you are likely to hear, “busy,” “crazy busy,” “insanely busy.” We have convinced ourselves that we are so busy that we simply have no time. But is that true?

To find out, time management expert and best-selling author Laura Vanderkam spent the past 12 months studying how she used her time during the busiest year of her life. On a spreadsheet broken into half-hour blocks, she logged the 8,784 hours that make up a leap year. In a article in the New York Times, “The Busy Person’s Lies,” she shared her results. It turns out that the stories she told herself about where her time went weren’t always true: her life was not quite as hectic as she had thought, and she suspected the same was true for others.

“One study from the June 2011 Monthly Labor Review found that people estimating 75-plus hour workweeks were off, on average, by about 25 hours,” she writes. “I once had a young man tell me he was working 180 hours a week — impossible, considering the fact that this is 12 more hours than a week contains — but he felt tired and overworked, as we all sometimes do, and chose a high number to quantify this feeling.” She encourages us to track our time so that we can be honest and accurate with ourselves about how we use it.

“Life is full, and life has space,” she concludes. “There is no contradiction.”

Long before time management experts existed, Rav Yisrael Salanter came to the same conclusion. He was once approached by someone who asked, “Rebbe, I only have fifteen minutes a day to learn. What should I learn? Chumash? Halachah? Jewish thought?”

“Learn mussar,” Rav Yisroel Salanter replied, “and then you will come to realize that you have a lot more than fifteen minutes a day to learn.”

So if we really have the time to do the things we say we want to do, why do we convince ourselves that we don’t?

A Chassidishe Rebbe was once walking with his chassidim when it began to rain. He stopped, looked up, and turned to his disciples and asked, “How do you know the sky wants to rain?” He then answered, “Because it is raining.”

Not understanding his point, the students asked him to explain. “If you want to know if someone wants to do something,” the rebbe answered, “see if they are doing it. We do what we want to be doing. If we aren’t doing it, we don’t really want to.”

The Yid HaKadosh, Rav Yaakov Yitzchak Rabinowitz, points out that we sometimes confuse wanting to do something with wanting to want to do something (Niflaos HaYehudi page 40). He notes that even the person who has only attained the level of wanting to want to be doing the right things is worthy of being called an oveid Hashem. However, to reach even higher levels and to realize the best version of ourselves, we must find the drive and the discipline to transition from wanting to want, to actually wanting. Only then will we realize that we truly do have time for what we want to do, and we will do it.

Sometimes that transition just has to happen; other times we can inspire it and move it along. Either way, it is important not to give in to our arch nemesis, the yetzer hara, and erroneously believe that the only thing holding us back is lack of time.

Sefiras Ha’omer is a 49-day journey to time awareness. It is a system that encourages us to literally or figuratively log our time and have the discipline and strength to fill in the spaces with what we claim we truly want to be doing.

I am Not a Modern Orthodox Rabbi

Recently, an article referencing a conversation we had on Behind the Bima referred to me as a “Modern Orthodox Rabbi.” I was taken aback by that characterization and found myself badly wanting to correct it.

To be clear, it’s not that I want to disassociate with modern orthodoxy as much as that I desperately don’t want to be reduced to just it. I would have preferred a more accurate (although admittedly less catchy) description: a member of the post-ideological, broad and diverse Torah community.

Now don’t misunderstand. I am proud to have received semicha from Yeshiva University and feel honored and blessed to enjoy a close relationship with several of its Roshei Yeshiva whom I consider my rebbeim and poskim. Among other philosophies associated with modern orthodoxy, I unapologetically and without hesitancy see the religious significance of the miracle of the Modern State of Israel and express my gratitude to Hashem for it.

But these are only some components of who I am; there is much more to what I believe, how I live, the leaders and communities I connect with, and the values I hold dear.

I certainly respect the right of others to fully identify with one particular hashkafa. Minhagim, customs, and practices are important as are outlooks, perspectives, and approaches to life. Some feel more comfortable, safer, locked in to one derech, one approach and view. I understand both the tradition and temptation of such a life. As examples, you will often hear Chabad rabbis who only ever quote the Rebbes of Chabad and Chafetz Chaim rabbis who largely quote the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Henoch. There are YU rabbis who limit themselves to quoting Rav Soloveitchik or Rabbi Lord Sacks.

Make no mistake, I am not saying these rabbis are doing anything wrong. I personally prefer to quote all these sources of Torah and many more, to learn and teach the Torah of diverse great scholars and righteous leaders, to incorporate aspects of the beauty, meaning and inspiration of the rich fabric of the Torah world, both that which I am most familiar with and pursuing new horizons.

Among the many questions Jewish dating websites ask when you create a profile is how you categorize yourself religiously. Possibilities usually include some variation of Modern Orthodox, Modern Orthodox Machmir, Modern Yeshivish, Yeshivish, Carlebachian, or Chassidish. Perhaps it makes sense for a dating profile to allow you to choose one answer in order to achieve compatibility, but we don’t have to sign up or designate ourselves as one category for life.

When Rav Asher Weiss visited our community, he challenged us to “have a litvishe head and a chasidishe heart, the honesty & integrity of a yekke and the temimus and purity of a Hungarian, the Kavod HaTorah of a Sefardi and the love of Eretz Yisrael of a tziyoni.” He most certainly didn’t intend to promote stereotypes or suggest that any of these qualities can be found exclusively among one group and not the others. He was simply encouraging us to take the best of what we tend to associate with each specific group and incorporate it all into our own complex Avodas Hashem.

The prophet Yechezkel tells us that there were twelve gates in the Beis HaMikdash. According to Rav Chaim Vital (Pri Eitz Chaim, Shaar ha-Tefillah), correspondingly, each of the twelve tribes had its own nusach ha’tefillah, its own liturgy, and its own heavenly gate through which its prayers would ascend. Almost two hundred years later, the Maggid of Mezeritch (Maggid Devarav le-Yaakov 141) added that if someone doesn’t know his or her tribe, there was a thirteenth gate. He suggested that when it comes to davening, this corresponds to the nusach of the AriZal, which the Maggid called the “Sha’ar Hakollel,” the universal gate.

What is true for nusach is true for life. There are those who are confident about what hashkafic tribe they come from. They walk in and out of one narrow gate. But I believe there are many of us, maybe even most of us, who see ourselves as part of the Sha’ar Hakollel of life, drawing from the richness of the Torah world, uncomfortable and unwilling to lock ourselves into a narrow gate, but instead embracing a vast and expansive entrance. We don’t alternate between hashkafas or practices, we integrate them.

Members of the Sha’ar Hakollel have no specific yeshiva or shul. Our movement not only has no name or organization, it has unlikely ever been considered or called a movement. We have no set minhagim or identifying uniform. We live in Boca and Boro Park, in Teaneck and Lakewood, in Israel and America and all over the world.

Data and anecdotal evidence show that there are many in “yeshivish” communities regularly listening to the shiurim of “YU” rabbonim and there are a growing number of “modern orthodox” young people finding meaning in chassidishe seforim and contemporary leaders like Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern, Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz, Rav Elimelech Biderman, and others. There are Jewish magazines that may be perceived as “right wing” but have large readership in “modern orthodox” communities. These magazines are not locked into one hashkafa, but they feature many, exposing their readership to great leaders across the spectrum of the Torah community. The diversity of their growing subscription base testifies to the thirst and appetite to walk through the Sha’ar Hakollel, not just through one particular gate.

I had a rebbe who would say, “You can put me in a box when I am dead; until then don’t try to make me fit neatly into one of your labels.” Perhaps others feel more comfortable in their position if they can either count you among their tribe or decide that you are part of the tribe they have rejected. But while narrow vision serves them (and again, to be perfectly clear, I am not casting negative aspersions on any people who choose this path), it doesn’t have to be our way.

The Almighty doesn’t limit us to what yeshiva, seminary or school we graduated. He doesn’t only know us by what we wear on our head, how we voted, what nusach we daven, or if we eat gebrokts or kitniyos. Hashem is complex, His Torah is multifaceted and has seventy faces, and our personalities and practices are made up of many parts. We don’t alternate between them like someone with multiple personalities, but we synthesize, integrate, and weave them into a rich tapestry.

Some in the Torah world, in many ways paralleling the divisions and partisanship in the culture around us, want us to line up and choose our camp, to see things in black and white instead of grey, as binary instead of pluralistic, as win/lose instead of win/win. But we don’t have to listen, we don’t have to allow ourselves to be defined narrowly, or to sign up for a particular team competing with and to the exclusion of all others.

Perhaps one day there will be a name, an organization or movement for the community who walk through the Sha’ar Hakollel. Or perhaps that itself would undermine and compromise the beauty of such a life. For now, it is enough to know we exist, to draw strength from one another and to not feel pressured to pick a team.

A student of Rav Hutner zt”l once confided that he felt his secular career meant he was living a double life. Rav Hutner responded (Pachad Yitzchak Iggeros U-Kesavim, pp. 184-185) that someone who switches between the room they rent in a hotel and the room they rent in a house is leading a double life. However, someone who rents a house that has many rooms is leading one life.

We don’t have to cram into one room. We can spread out across the house called Torah. It has many rooms, they are decorated and function differently and they complement one another.

If referred to in the future, I hope to be identified as a litvishe, chassidishe, yekke, Sefardi, tziyoni rabbi… with a great podcast.

Did This Year Knock You Down or Save Your Life?

Recently, those watching the men’s NCAA basketball tournament game between Gonzaga and USC saw something that made them gasp, and it wasn’t any play on the court. In the corner of the screen, in the middle of play, Bert Smith, a veteran referee, passed out. He toppled over and lay on the ground, still, eyes open but unresponsive. For a moment, people present and those watching around the world feared the worst.

It wasn’t long before he came to, but even then, he had no idea what had happened. He remembered the previous play, how he struggled to catch his breath and felt wobbly, but he doesn’t remember passing out. He described what it was like when he came to:

I look to my left, and it’s a doctor. I say, “What’s going on, man?” And he goes, “Bert, you passed out. You blacked out.” I said, “What?” I look to my right, and I see a stretcher. “What’s that for?” The doctor says, “That’s what I’m taking you out on.”

I said: “Listen, Doc, I’m walking out of here. You’re going to get on one side, he’s going to get on the other, we’re going to wave to the fans, and I’m walking out of here.” The doctor said, “Listen, tell you what, why don’t you just sit on the stretcher?” I said “OK, I can do that.”

The doc says, “Swing your legs around.” I swing my legs around, and they go: Click-click-click-click. They strapped me in! I looked at him and said, “Oh no you didn’t…’”

Bert Smith is in great shape. Growing up in Buffalo, he was a high school small forward, receiver and 400-meter runner, who then played some junior college basketball. He rarely uses an elevator, prefers the stairs, he parks in the farthest spot so he has the longest walk, and he exercises regularly. This season, he was up and down the court in ninety games, so it made no sense that he suddenly passed out.

He was treated at the stadium for two hours, but once his vitals were normal, and he wasn’t wobbly, dizzy or blurry, the NCAA announced that Bert was doing well. So well in fact, that he went back to the hotel and was talking and laughing with friends, eating dinner when one of them said, “I heard the sound of your head hitting the court from 30 rows away, maybe you should get examined for a concussion just to be sure.” Bert agreed and proceeded to IU Health Methodist hospital.

They tested him for a concussion, and it turns out he didn’t have one. But he did have something worse. The doctor on call told Bert that she saw the fall and something didn’t add up. She wasn’t satisfied that his pulse, blood pressure, oxygen level, were normal and that he didn’t have a headache. She called for more tests.

When they came back, she told Bert, I have the answer to the question of why you passed out. You have a blood clot in your lung. He was admitted to the hospital, put on blood thinners, and a couple of days later, the clot was gone, he was discharged, and Bert Smith had a new lease on life. It turns out that passing out was the best thing that ever happened to him because if he hadn’t discovered that clot, it could have gone to his heart or brain and killed him.

Instead of being resentful or bitter that he had a health scare, Bert is grateful that he passed out during the NCAA Tournament, when people were able to respond and help immediately, and not when he was driving or sleeping. Reflecting on the episode, he said, “It puts in perspective the value of each day, because we all go through our lives – we’re all guilty of it – and we just live, right? But do we say ‘I love you’ enough? Do we give an extra hug enough? Do we do the things with our family and friends that have value to them? When you live something like I did, it hits you square in the eyes that you really have to value each day.”

Bert Smith’s fall didn’t kill him. It saved his life.

As I read this story, I couldn’t help but think what Smith endured physically, most of us encounter emotionally and spiritually. In a famous letter written to one of his students, the great Rav Yitzchak Hutner zt”l wrote (Pachad Yitzchok, Iggerot U’Kesavim, #128):

Know, however, my dear, that the root of your soul is not the tranquility of the yetzer tov but rather the war of the yetzer tov. Your heartfelt letter attests like a hundred witnesses that you are indeed a faithful warrior in the army of the yetzer tov. In English they say, “Lose a battle and win the war.” You certainly have stumbled and will stumble again . . . and in some battles you will fall, be conquered. But I promise you that after losing all these battles, you will emerge from the war with the crown of victory upon your head . . . “Lose battles but win wars.” The wisest of all men said, “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again” (Mishlei 24:16). Fools think that this means—even though he falls seven times, he rises again. But the wise know well that it means the nature of the tzaddik’s rise is through his seven falls.

In life, we sometimes fall, even collapse. It can be a disappointment or failure at work, a challenge to our health, a relationship in distress or a crisis of faith. In those moments, we can stay on the ground, wallow in our circumstance, see ourselves as victims or we can embrace the challenge, extract its lessons, come back stronger and better.

This year has knocked many of us down. But for most of us, it has knocked us out of our routine and our comfort zone in ways that if we choose, we can learn an enormous amount about ourselves, our families, our lives and our lifestyles. If we want, we can transform the experience of Corona knocking us down into it saving important aspects of our lives.

Like Waze, God Knows Where You Are, Where You Came From and Where You are Going

There are 7.7 billion people on earth. When contemplating that staggering number, it is easy to feel insignificant, inconsequential, even invisible. It is only natural to wonder, do I—or my actions—even matter? It is difficult to comprehend that God could have a personal relationship with me or could care about what I do when there are so many people in the world.

In his book “Pinpoint,” journalist Greg Milner traces the history of GPS technology. He writes, “This extraordinary system began as an American military application, a way to improve the accuracy of bombs and keep bomber pilots safe, but today its tentacles are everywhere.” Milner calculates that there are currently over five billion devices in the world that use GPS including three billion smartphones using apps to help people find their way.

Take Waze for example. This one app knows the exact whereabouts of over 140 million people at the same time. It might sound dramatic, but Waze literally knows where we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. Waze knows the best route to get us to our destination. If we have veered of course, Waze knows and helps us recalibrate and get back on course without judgment or criticism.

If an app can track and direct millions of people, all the more so can the Almighty know everything about every one of us including where we came from, where we are heading, what is the best way to get there and if we have gone off course.

The Ramban in his introduction to Iyov writes, “We must believe that God knows all individual creatures and the details of their lives.” Similarly, when speaking about the consequences for the Metzora, the Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah #168) writes, “At the root of the precept lies the purpose to establish firmly in our spirits that the watchful care of the Eternal Lord is individual, over each and every one among human beings, and His eyes are open to observe all their ways.”

As great a blessing GPS is, there are unintended consequences to no longer studying a map or finding our way. According to researchers, becoming so dependent on GPS technology has made us vulnerable. Neurologists suggest that when we rely exclusively on a GPS to navigate and find our way, we stop interacting with our environment, we lack awareness of where we are, and we fail to take responsibility for getting to our destination. Our brains become reprogrammed to be passive in our own travels.

Believing that God knows everything about us, and that there is Divine providence in the world, should not lead to become passive spectators to our own lives. Yes, He knows where we are and the path we are on. But WE still program the destination and we determine if we follow the directions.

Rabbi Paysach Krohn shares the following amazing story:

Rabbi Moshe Plutchok is a teacher in Derech Chaim Yeshivah of Brooklyn. Like many who live in New York City throughout the year, he and his family spend the summer in the mountains in the Monticello area, in central New York State.

There, he attends what is known as a “learning camp,” located in Camp Morris. He and other rabbis, who teach in the various camps for Jewish youth in the area, have a kollel [advanced Talmudic study for married men] where they study together in the afternoons. It is known as Kollel Mechanchim [“The Educators’ Kollel”].

One day a number of summers ago, Rabbi Plutchok saw a businessman walk into the beis medrash carrying a bilingual ArtScroll Gemara, the most popular of the translations of the Talmud into English. As a beginner, and studying in English instead of in the original Aramaic-Hebrew, he was a little out of place, but nevertheless made to feel certainly welcome by the Rabbi regulars. The man sat down and learned with great enthusiasm. When he had a question he would go and ask others, even if they were younger than him, until he got an answer.

Rabbi Plutchok eventually got to talking with the man. The man told him that, unfortunately, he had an advanced stage of liver cancer. Rabbi Plutchok was amazed, because this man came to the Study Hall every day in such an upbeat manner and always learned with incredible diligence. “It’s amazing to me,” Rabbi Plutchok told him. “You have this terrible illness, yet you come here every day and are so upbeat about the learning.”

“Rabbi,” the man said, “I’ll tell you the truth. The ArtScroll Gemara is carrying me. You see, I never went to a yeshivah. Now that the Gemara is in English, I am finally able to understand it. And if I don’t understand something I ask the rabbis here. It makes me feel very special. It enables me to feel I can make a connection to the legacy of Torah and the Jewish people. That’s what’s carrying me.”

One day, near the end of the summer, Rabbi Plutchok walked in and saw this man sitting on the side of the room, looking sad. “Is everything ok?” he asked. “No, rabbi not really,” he replied. “The illness is progressing and I was thinking, What difference does it make if I learn? Who cares? You and the others are all accomplished Torah scholars. Your Talmudic studies make a difference. As for me, I don’t understand everything it says even in English translation. When I ask my questions to the rabbis, I understand most of what they say, but not all. I’m not on your level, rabbi. What’s the difference if I learn? Who cares?”

Rabbi Plutchok felt terrible for the man, but, incredibly, just the night before he had heard an amazing story on a Jewish radio station. He decided to share it:

A century ago lived a great symphony conductor, an Italian maestro named Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), who led concerts all over the world. He was known as an absolute perfectionist and had few peers. Toscanini had a biographer who would interview him periodically over the years as a part of a major book he was writing. One evening, he called Toscanini and told him that he would be in town the next night, and asked if he could come to the house to interview him. Toscanini answered that he could not because he would be doing something special that would require absolute concentration; he could not be interrupted.

“Maestro,” the biographer said, “what are you doing that’s so special?”

“There is a concert being played overseas. I used to be the conductor of that symphony orchestra, but I could not be there this year. So I’m going to listen on a shortwave radio and hear how the other conductor leads the orchestra. I don’t want any interruptions whatsoever.”

“Maestro, it would be my greatest pleasure to watch how you listen to a concert played by an orchestra that you used to lead. I promise I won’t say anything. I’ll sit on the other side of the room, quietly.”

“You promise to be perfectly quiet?” Toscanini asked. “Yes.”

“Then you can come.” The next night, the biographer came and sat quietly while Toscanini listened to the concert, which lasted almost an hour. Finally, when it ended, the biographer remarked, “Wow, wasn’t that magnificent?”

Toscanini said, “Not really.”

“Why not?”

“There were supposed to be 120 musicians, including 15 violinists. Only 14 of them played.”

The biographer thought he was joking. How could he know from 6,000 miles away, over shortwave radio, that one of the violinists was missing? The biographer had his doubts but didn’t want to say anything and went home. The next morning, though, he had to find out for himself, so he called the concert hall overseas, asked for the music director and inquired as to how many musicians were supposed to have been playing the night before versus how many had actually shown up. The concert hall director told him that there were supposed to have 120 musicians, including 15 violinists, but only 14 had shown up!

The biographer was amazed. He returned to Toscanini and said, “Sir, I owe you an apology. I thought you were just making it up the other night. But please, tell me, how could you know that one violinist was missing?”

“There is a great difference between you and me,” Toscanini answered. “You’re a part of the audience and to the audience everything sounds wonderful. But I’m the conductor, and the conductor has to know every note of music that has to be played. When I realized that certain notes were not being played, I knew without a doubt that one of the violists was missing.”

Rabbi Plutchok now turned to the man and said, “Maybe to regular people it doesn’t make a difference if you learn, but to the Conductor of the World Symphony – Who knows every note of music that is supposed to be played, Who knows every word of Torah that is supposed to be learned, every line of tefillah that is supposed to be prayed – to Him it makes a difference!”

The man embraced Rabbi Plutchok and could not thank him enough.

That winter, Rabbi Plutchok happened to meet the son of this man and asked how his father was doing. The son told him that his father has passed away. However, he added, “Ever since my father returned from the bungalow colony, every time he opened his Gemara he would say, ‘I am performing for the Conductor of the World Symphony!’”

Though we are only one of 7.7 billion people on earth, our choices matter and we matter. Never doubt that the Master of the Universe knows where you are, where you have come from and He is ready to help you navigate to where you want to go.

Be Grateful It Tastes Bitter

In too many homes, marror is not the most bitter thing at the seder table. There are people who suffer from chronic negativity, who drag down those around them and make most interactions unpleasant, often confrontational, almost always negative.

There is lots of new research that has been coming out about how people who live marror lives can cultivate and foster more positive emotions and attitudes. Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina, has developed a theory about accumulating what she calls, “micro-moments of positivity.” She demonstrated that more than a sudden burst of good fortune, it is repeated brief moments of positive feelings that can provide a buffer against stress and depression and foster both physical and mental health

To foster more positive thinking, she and her colleagues suggest:

• Recognize a positive event each day.

• Savor that event and log it in a journal or tell someone about it.

• List a personal strength and note how you used it.

• Set an attainable goal and note your progress.

• Recognize and practice small acts of kindness daily.

• Practice mindfulness, focusing on the here and now rather than the past or future.

All their suggestions revolve around amassing positive experiences, thoughts and feelings and having them overwhelm the negative. In other words, have so much charoses that you can’t even taste the marror. One almost didn’t need the research to know we benefit mentally and physically from focusing on positive thoughts.

However, the halacha comes to a different conclusion and with it, I believe a great insight into transforming ourselves from negative, to positive people. Yes, we dip the marror in charoses, but we don’t overwhelm or overpower the taste of marror, we specifically eat it to invoke its bitterness.

Almost every Hagaddah is bothered by the presence of marror at the seder. After all, it is a night of freedom, joy and celebration. It is one thing to be maschil b’genus, to start from the beginning of the story despite it being degrading or humiliating, but why harp on the negative? By the time we have completed maggid, the essential telling of the story, we have arrived at the miracle of our liberation from bondage to freedom. Why not celebrate with sweet treats, why with bitter marror?

Rabbi Lord Sacks z”l explains that we eat marror because “within freedom, we are commanded each year never to forget the taste of slavery, so that we should not take liberty for granted, nor forget those who are still afflicted.” The Sfas Emes says we eat the marror to remember that not only were the matzah and freedom from Hashem, but the suffering and bitterness too were part of His master plan and design. Others say we eat marror to remember that even after matzah, even after being set free, there are bitter moments in life and they too are part of our continued journey and story. Many more answers are offered, but they all have in common that the bitter taste serves to remind us about bitterness.

Rav Kook explains that we don’t eat the marror to invoke bitterness, we eat it to affirm our freedom. A slave whose entire life is bitter and only has access to bitter foods no longer tastes anything as bitter. Bitter simply becomes their default taste, their new normal. When we bite into something and an alert goes off, we recoil by its bitterness, we are in fact so incredibly fortunate because it means we are not accustomed to that taste, we have not adapted to that as our reality. Says Rav Kook, we eat the marror not to invoke bitter times or experiences, but the opposite. The fact that we can taste something as bitter is an affirmation of how sweet our lives generally are.

Perhaps we can transform ourselves from negative to more positive people not by overwhelming the negative with positive, but by embracing the negative and recognizing that if that is our negative, we in fact have such positive lives. I am not referring to out of the ordinary negative, deeply painful and devastating situations of life that understandably justify pain, negativity and sadness.

But just as we can be transformed with micro moments of ordinary positivity, I think most negative people suffer from the composite or compounding of micro moments of ordinary negativity. Instead of harping on the small negatives and frustration – someone said something hurtful, they ran out of the pesach product I needed, the traffic made me late, the service at the restaurant was poor — we should stop and remind ourselves that if these are my biggest problems, how much is going right and well in my life. If this is my marror, my bitterness, how sweet my life is.

This past year has been filled with frustration, challenges and for some people real pain. Last Pesach, unimaginably, many had the Sedarim alone, isolated and apart from family or friends. Everyone was locked down, separated and longing for the Pesach we have been accustomed to. While our lives have been significantly altered and major adjustments were needed throughout this pandemic, they are a reminder of how blessed we normally are, how much we take for granted and just how sweet our lives are ordinarily.

The great coach Lou Holtz once said, “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.” The moments of small pain and inconsequential frustration not only alert us that something is momentarily wrong, but they are a very healthy reminder about how much is right.

We are commanded to eat marror to remember that the romaine lettuce or grated horseradish should be the only bitter and negative thing at our table. If we can taste bitter, we in fact have sweet lives for which we should be not only profoundly grateful, but eternally positive people.

What Other People Think About Me is None of My Business

There is nothing like waking up to a text that says, “Did you see what they posted about you on Instagram?”

On the one hand, when you are a public personality, especially if you put yourself out there by speaking, writing articles and expressing opinions, unsolicited criticism is inevitable and unsurprising. On the other hand, when it is expressed harshly or unfairly, it still stings.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: “What other people think about me is none of my business.” While empowering and comforting, I have been wondering – is it true?

When negotiating with the tribes who wanted to settle east of the Jordan River, Moshe tells them once the land of Israel is fully conquered, then (Bamidbar 32:22) “Vihyisem nekiyim mei-Hashem u-miYisrael,” “And you shall be clean before God and Israel.” Based on this, the Mishna (Shekalim 3:2) obligates us to not only avoid doing a wrong thing, but to avoid even the perception that one has done a violation. We must remain innocent in the eyes not just of God, but of our fellow man as well. Indeed, the Chassam Sofer (Teshuvos 6:59) writes that he has been troubled his entire life by this obligation and responsibility. It is one thing to be clean in Hashem’s eyes, since He knows the truth of what we have done. By contrast, the expectation that we can conduct our lives in such a fashion that no person can cast a doubt or a criticism seems almost impossible.

We have a parallel rabbinic law called maris ayin, a prohibition against doing something that can be misinterpreted as a violation of Jewish law. You have likely heard this term invoked when discussing the permissibility of going into a non-kosher restaurant to order a kosher drink or use the restroom.

Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe o.c. 2:40, 4:82) explains that the concern of maris ayin is that someone will misinterpret that something wrong is in fact ok and will come to violate a law themselves. The similar concept of chashad, on the other hand, is behaving in a way that will cause others to be suspicious of your wrongdoing, even if it will not impact their own behavior.

The common denominator of both prohibitions is that in both cases, I must be concerned with what others think about me and regulate my behavior accordingly. Or maybe not.

Our parsha, Vayakhel, contains the obligation to assemble the kiyor, the laver that the Kohanim used to wash their hands and feet in preparation for the avodah, the service in the Mishkan. When the men considered the persecution and oppression they were suffering in Egypt and gave up on a brighter future, they refused to bring children into this world. The righteous women, though, remained optimistic, hopeful and filled with faith. They used their mirrors to beautify themselves and to draw their husbands close. Now they donated those same mirrors to the Mishkan to be used in its holy utensils. Rashi tells us that Moshe rejected this gift, disturbed that instruments of vanity would be used in the holy Mishkan, but Hashem told him that these were, in fact, the holiest gifts and they must be accepted.

Perhaps as the Kohanim prepared to do their service, they needed to look into these mirrors, evaluate their lives, their decisions and their behavior, and consider how they were perceived by those around them. Only when they could successfully look at themselves in the mirror and be satisfied could they continue to do the avodah, to serve in the holy Mishkan.

Yes, we must consider the impact of our behavior on others, how it will be perceived, what others might learn from it, and what type of impression or misimpression we might be giving. Maris Ayin is something we must be cognizant of. At the same time, if we can look at ourselves in the mirror and genuinely be satisfied, I believe we need not look back and think about how others are reacting; rather, we should remember what other people think about me is none of my business.

When people, particular strangers make nasty comments, it says much more about them than it does about us. Yes, we should consider if the message has merit, even (maybe especially) when we don’t like the messenger or the way they crafted their message. But if the message is unfair, if we can look at ourselves in the mirror and honestly be satisfied with what we see, we cannot and must not absorb the negativity cast our way.

When I was growing up in Teaneck, we had a barber named Chubby. On his mirror was a sign that said, “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” We simply cannot make everyone happy all of the time, nor should we try. We must be clean in the eyes of Hashem and do our best to behave in way that is beyond reproach to others. But once we do, not only should we not take too seriously what others are saying about us, we shouldn’t even listen.

A rabbinic colleague was recently sharing with me how his secretary was starting to tell him what others were saying about him. He cut her off and asked, is it important to know, do you think I did something wrong? When she said no, he said, “In that case, I would rather not know, please don’t tell me.” She was flabbergasted and in disbelief that he had the discipline to not want or need to know what was being said. If what other people think about me is none of my business, why would I even want to know?

At the end of our Amidah, we ask Hashem: v’limkalelai nafshi sidom, may my soul be silent to those who curse me. It is understandable that we ask for the courage and strength that our lips remain silent, but what does it mean to ask for our soul to do the same? Perhaps we are not concerned we will react or respond harshly, but we are concerned that the curse or criticism of another person might torment and torture our soul. And so we ask, let my soul remain silent, not become frazzled or frustrated by what others are saying about me.

We must do our best and when we are convinced we have done so, we must work on not caring too much about what people say. If all else fails, remember this truism (origin unknown): “When you’re 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.”

I Love Your Earrings

Several years ago, on a trip to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, my children and I joined a small tour. The guide who took us around patiently gave the background and offered fascinating insights into all that we saw. She spoke with great enthusiasm about historic and pre-historic times and spoke passionately about each display.

About fifteen minutes into the tour, my daughter Atara, four years old at the time, raised her hand to ask a question. With a gleam in her eye and a big smile on her face, eager to interact with a young child taking an interest in her life’s work, the guide said, “Absolutely, ask me anything.” I must admit that I, too, was very curious what fascinated my little girl so much and what question she would ask. My daughter looked up and said, “I love your earrings, where did you get them?” I will never forget the feeling of wanting to be swallowed whole by the tyrannosaurus rex in the room. While it wasn’t exactly the question she was looking for, the guide couldn’t help but smile from the compliment.

You probably didn’t know it, but March 1^st was World Compliment Day. First initiated in the Netherlands in 2001, this holiday has gained in popularity and spread across the world, with people making a concerted effort to offer compliments, specifically on that day. The founder of World Compliment Day explained why he started it: “Nothing stimulates more, gives more energy, makes people happier and, as far as business is concerned, increases productivity and commitment faster than sincere appreciation. So why not use it a little bit more?”

Giving compliments and offering positive feedback shouldn’t be reserved for one day a year and shouldn’t be so unusual they are cause for a holiday and celebration. Compliments are a critical part of life.

The Gemara (Kerisus 6b) tells us that when the spices of the ketores, first identified in our Parsha, were being ground and mixed, someone was appointed to say “hadeik-heitev, heitev-hadeik” (grind thoroughly, thoroughly grind).” The Gemara continues that this is consistent with the opinion of Rav Yochanan who said: Just as speech is detrimental to wine, so too is speech beneficial for spices.” Based on the Yerushalmi (Yoma 4:5), we incorporate this idea into the korbanos we recite daily: “As one would grind the incense, he would say: ‘Grind thoroughly, thoroughly grind’ – because the sound is beneficial for the spices, mipnei she’hakol yafeh la’besamim.”

How does a voice impact the grinding of spices? The Abarbanel explains that saying these words in this pattern creates a rhythm which helped the one grinding and resulted in more finely ground spices.

But there is an alternative explanation that I find very powerful. When the Kohen is grinding it can be tedious, boring, and rote. The Kohen may not feel like continuing, may not see the progress or feel what he is doing is important. Ha’Kol yafe la’besamim, the voice of the person giving encouragement, offering a compliment, lending a positive word will mean everything to the Kohen and provide exactly what he needs to hear to not only keep going, but to give it his all.

Words of encouragement and compliments make an enormous difference. As an article this week in Harvard Business Review highlights:

Gratitude makes people feel valued, and positive feedback has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of stress on employee performance. Neuroscientists have even shown that the brain processes verbal affirmations similarly to financial rewards.

The research they reference confirms something we of course intuitively know: that people enjoy being complimented and that it brings benefits. But here is the amazing thing. Even though we know the value of complimenting, it turns out we still often fail to do so. The article continues:

Who doesn’t like when someone praises their way of handling a tense situation at work, their choice of attire, or their presentation skills? Indeed, when asked, nearly 90% of people believe that they should compliment each other more often. And yet we tend not to give them in practice. In fact, only 50% of people in one experiment who wrote down a compliment for a friend actually sent the compliment along when given the chance, even though they’d already done the hardest part — coming up with something nice and thoughtful to say. That is, despite the widely shared desire to give more compliments, when faced with the decision people still often forgo low-cost opportunities to make others feel appreciated and valued.

So why don’t people compliment? Research suggests it is because we both doubt our own ability to skillfully and effectively do so, and we grossly underestimate the power of our positive feedback and the impact of our compliment. We have something that costs us nothing, that we have in an unlimited supply, and that can change a person’s day and sometimes even their life.

Sometimes, the people closest to us are the ones we take most for granted and fail to recognize or compliment. Don’t hold back because you are nervous your compliment won’t measure up and certainly don’t stay silent because you think your compliment won’t mean much. Reflecting in a letter, Mark Twain once wrote, “I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.”

Be sincere with your compliments; don’t exaggerate or go overboard. Be specific. “I admire way you handled that situation.” “I am impressed by your patience or generosity.” “I appreciate the delicious meal you made or the wonderful way you interacted with the children.” Be creative, look for opportunities to compliment or offer a positive word. It will bring out the best in others and make you feel good too.

It’s Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been

In December of 2018, Yehoshua Zvi Hershkowitz passed away at the age of 92. You probably never heard his name and that is exactly how he wanted it. Mr. Hershkowitz was born in 1925 in Hungary. After the Germans occupied the country in 1944, he was deported to Dachau and spent the next year there, surviving on meager rations of bread and soup. After liberation, he made his way to the United States, moved to Borough Park and got married.

In 1975, he became aware that a neighbor of his was struggling to put food on the table and he realized there must be more people struggling like his neighbor. So, Mr. Hershkowitz founded Tomchei Shabbos out of the kitchen of his home in Borough Park. He and friends began gathering the ingredients of traditional Shabbos meals and dropping off packages of food by station wagon at the homes of those they heard were wanting. From this humble beginning, Mr. Hershkowitz built an organization that every week distributes meals to 600 families in the Borough Park area.

His concept and the name were rapidly imitated. Today there are Tomchei Shabbos organizations in New York, Boca Raton, Los Angeles, Toronto, Washington, Phoenix, Miami, Antwerp, London and other world cities, as well as dozens in Israel. Thousands of families have food to eat only because of the vision and hard work of a survivor who earned a living working in the Post Office in Brooklyn, but earned immortality by caring enough to think about struggling people around him.

His Tomchei Shabbos branch grew to a point where it deployed a fleet of 16 trucks to deliver food packages each week. He personally raised millions of dollars to fund it. He was constantly out of the limelight, took no pay for his work and never accepted public recognition. In fact, the New York Times obituary for him pointed out that he even rejected the prestigious sixth Torah Aliyah in his shul. When the Gabbai tried to convince him to accept it, he replied, “I’m sorry, I’m a plain Jew.”

Too many today associate going viral with adding value. They think the greater the name recognition, the greater the person, the more friends and followers on social media, the more of a difference someone is making.

Though our parsha begins with Hashem talking to Moshe, rather than use his name, it simply says the pronoun “and you.” Indeed, this is the only parsha in the Torah since our introduction to Moshe in which his name does not appear. Commentaries scramble to explain why the omission and why specifically in this parsha?

The Ba’al HaTurim explains that when Moshe pleads with Hashem to forgive the people after their horrific mistake in building a Golden Calf, he says “erase me now from Your book which You have written.” Hashem takes Moshe up on the offer and, indeed, his name is erased from our parsha.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Likutei Sichos v. 21) takes an entirely different perspective, one that turns our assumption on its head. He explains that Moshe is not missing from the parsha at all; in fact, he is even more present than usual. But where?

Says the Rebbe, he is found in the very first word “v’ata”, and “you.” A name is how we are known and how we are referred to and referenced by others. However, we exist even before we have a name, even before others label us. The word “you” refers to the essence, the core of who the person is, far beyond the name by which they are called. “You” reflects the soul with its unique character, personality and mission for which it is created. “You” is the person with no interference from others and no need to be identified or acknowledged by others.

God Himself testifies that Moshe is the greatest “anav”, the most humble person who ever lived. His life was not dedicated to his honor or glory. It was devoted to the mission of repairing Hashem’s world, to helping people and to actualizing the potential for which he was created. Moshe spent his life seeking to fulfill his “You,” not to advance or promote his “Moshe,” his name or standing.

Mark Twain famously said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” We each have a mission; we were born for a purpose. We each have talents, skills and assets that can make a difference. We were not born with them to simply have a nicer house or car, to drink a more expensive bottle of wine or to enjoy the most channels of cable TV. We are here to make a difference, to matter, not so that our name goes up in lights, but so that our essence makes the difference it was meant to make.

George Eliot once said, “It’s Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been.” Don’t just be a name for others; be a “you” to realize your truest self. Figure out what difference you can make, and then go make it. Don’t just be what you might have been. Be what you are still meant to be.

Have You Contributed to the BRS Global Campaign? If Not, Why?

Imagine someone found your credit card statement and reviewed it. What would they conclude about your values, priorities, what you consider essential and nonessential? Does your actual spending match your expressed values? How much do you spend a month on streaming entertainment and how much on streaming shiurim?

During the pandemic we were painfully precluded from offering shiurim and programs in person. Right from the start, BRS pivoted to bringing our programming online—at first for our members, but, we soon discovered, for many outside Boca Raton who connected with our values, vision and Torah, as well.

There are thousands of people each week, on Zoom, Youtube, Whatsapp groups, Facebook, and more, who benefit from our shiurim, classes, programs, conversations, writings, and posts. While our core community of course remains our local BRS members, Corona created a BRS Global Community learning together, being entertained together, and sharing values and vision together with our local members. It is tremendously gratifying and rewarding that in February alone, our youtube channel (youtube.com/rabbiefremgoldberg) had over 32,300 views.

This week we are once again running a campaign inviting non-BRS members to show appreciation and to partner and enable us to provide these learning opportunities beyond Boca. (Please visit brsonline.org/global to find out more) We pour our hearts and souls into all we do, we regularly hear the most heartwarming and gratifying feedback and encouragement. Does the response to the campaign reflect the number of people who watch, listen, read and tell us they enjoy?

The truth is, am I any different? Can I possibly even put a dollar amount on the value I receive from YUTorah.org, Sefaria.org, Wikipedia, and other free resources that I use regularly? And yet, I am embarrassed to confess that most often, when the annual pop-up opens saying that the website is free and relies on voluntary donations, I simply X out and proceed to take full advantage of what is being offered.

When I came to this realization, I went to these websites to do my part, but it got me thinking, why wasn’t my first instinct to give?

Last week we begin the first of four special readings, Parshas Shekalim. Every man over twenty was obligated to give one half-shekel weight of silver, approximately nine grams of silver, worth about $7.86 today, which was used to operate the Beis HaMikdash and which rendered the animals purchased with these funds truly communal sacrifices. This required gift had an unusual condition:

הֶֽעָשִׁ֣יר לֹֽא־יַרְבֶּ֗ה וְהַדַּל֙ לֹ֣א יַמְעִ֔יט מִֽמַּחֲצִ֖ית הַשָּׁ֑קֶל

“The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel…”

Why not let the rich pay more and cover the entire cost of the communal sacrifices? Wouldn’t it make sense to let the poor preserve their money to support themselves and allow the wealthy to underwrite the communal activity? And why is this command even necessary? Wouldn’t each individual want to contribute to be counted among the community and be among those supporting the communal sacrifices?

The tendency of people to assume “someone else will take care of it” is not new. Someone else will pay, someone else will volunteer, someone else will lead. The Torah reminds each individual that it is not someone else’s responsibility or obligation but our own. To be counted among the community, it isn’t enough to speak about values, one must act on them. It isn’t enough to say one cares, one must exhibit commitment.

The more our benefit is anonymous, cloaked by our device, the less we feel obligated to contribute or show appreciation for the value added to our lives. It is easy to X out of the appeal and move on to the website, there is no shame, no embarrassment. But that doesn’t make it right.

In Judaism, gratitude is not a debt we pay, it isn’t simply a means of making the one who gave us whole. Gratitude isn’t just for the recipient; it is for the one who gives it to express humility and a recognition of being dependent on one another. Moshe was not allowed to strike the Nile, an inanimate river, because he needed to show appreciation, even if the Nile wouldn’t have missed it had he not.

Contributing, even when it isn’t required, giving, even when it isn’t demanded, is a great expression of appreciation, a statement of who we are, even more than how much we value the one we are giving it to.

Last year, Yocheved and I received a gift basket delivered to our home with a beautiful note. It was from a couple we set up who were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary and wanted to acknowledge our role in their introduction. They have said thank you many times, we didn’t expect or need anything. (Frankly, I had no idea it was their anniversary.)

Have we thanked those who contributed to the lives we are blessed to live? Imagine if our kindergarten teacher got a note from us, decades later, thanking her for nurturing us with love. Imagine if our high school principal, our childhood pediatrician, our housekeeper growing up who cleaned our room, out of the blue got a gesture of gratitude showing that we cared enough to track them down and say thank you after all of these years. Did we express enough appreciation to the person who set us up with our spouse, gave us our first job, safely delivered our children?

In 1943, Eric Schwam arrived in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in southeast France, with his parents and a grandmother. During the Holocaust, a pastor of this town and his wife led calls to protect Jewish refugees from the occupying Nazis. The village became a center of resistance and ordinary residents took in and hid those who fled, including Schwam and his family.

Last year, Schwam passed away at 90 years old. The town’s mayor revealed that he left the town that had saved him $2.4 million dollars. One of the town’s workers said, “He was a very discreet gentleman and he didn’t want a lot of publicity about his gesture.”

Seventy-eight years later, with no obligation or responsibility, Eric Schwam showed gratitude, not just with words but with resources. He didn’t do so for honor, fame or attention, he didn’t do it because he was asked to, he did it because he felt it was the right thing to do.

We are tremendously grateful to all those who have already given to our campaign. We remain hopeful that others who benefit from BRS will yet contribute. Either way, I am grateful for what this campaign has taught me, not about others, but about myself.

(If you enjoyed this article, I invite you to show it at brsonline.org/global. Thank you in advance!)

Join Our Community